The main lodge was built in 1850. According to the resort’s website, it was built by Cape Breton native “Millionaire” MacNeil to show off the fortune he accumulated in Boston. Originally it was a three-storey house with a barn and wagon house made from materials shipped from Boston. He built it across the water from his childhood home.

After the Second World War, brothers Chad and Jamie Fownes bought the property and, with their mother, ran the Inverary Inn, named after Inverary Castle in Scotland.